The first transparent 3D-printed skull has been successfully implanted

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Three months ago, surgeons in Holland implanted a transparent plastic skull in a woman whose skull has never stopped growing. Incredibly, the rare bone disease that was wrecking her vision and destroying her life has been been bested by a simple 3D printer. The team of surgeons, led by Dr. Bon Verweij at the University Medical Center in Utrecht, expect her new skull to last indefinitely, opening up new vistas for cranial transformation.

The precursor to this achievement was a similar patching done last year, where 75% of a patient’s skull was replaced with a 3D-printed implant made of polyetherketoneketone (PEKK, a thermoplastic). While the cost and man-hours required to bulk-machine a skull would have been prohibitive, printing to exact specification is now routine. PEKK and its larger family of related plastics are extremely strong and temperature resistant (for sterilization), however, this new implant appears to be made from some new, and rather mysterious material.

The skull, made by an Australian firm, is actually fairly transparent. Lots of plastics can be transparent — acrylics, polycarbonates, etc. — but the stringent medical requirements, and also print requirements, place limits on the possible. While the transparency may be incidental, the picture above shows the clear advantage of such transparency: one can see the underlying brain and vasculature. Not only is this a nice feedback to see how things are going macroscopically, it also entices with potential to optically image activity in the brain like never before.

The 22-year-old woman patient may not have such things immediately in mind, and is probably just thankful to have a normal cranium. Her disorder had caused overgrowth of her old skull from a normal thickness of 1.5 centimeters to a battle-axe busting 5cm (2 inches). While the new skull appears permanent, details of attachment and integration to protective layer just beneath (known as the dura, for hard layer) are not yet publicly available. The two halves appear to be attached with standard titanium clasps which one finds in a typical “internal fixation” kit. These kits are simple erector sets from which the surgeon can select the right pieces, and then bend and shape to fit unto broken bones.

The potential to further customize these printings is huge. As a start, simple features to capture and mate the two halves against sliding motion may be of immediate advantage. Also, a more scalloped interface edge to the existing skull could be built in to later models. We previously discussed the possibility of adding provision for the kinds of implants that are now used to augment or restore hearing into replacement skulls. In particular, variant on the “BAHA” style implant system which uses bone conduction like Google Glass might be directly incorporated.

We’ll be sure to update you on this story when more information is made available — this is a big one.

Tagged In

My Uncle Gabriel got a stunning blue Dodge
Charger SRT8 from only workin part time on a home pc… hop over to here C­a­s­h­F­i­g­.­ℂ­o­m

MisterBlat

Two words… LED lighting.

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

hahah

And so the first skull case mod was born.

Mayoo

With water cooling? I also wonder how much you can overclock your brain.

MargieAtPolitiChicks

Best idea EVER!

SatiricalQuark

lol

ronch

Holy crap. I want a 3D-printed brain that will make me so smart Einstein will look like a complete idiot compared to me.

Keith Myatt

It is just the cover, not the brain.

ronch

It. Was. A. Sarcastic. Joke.

Justin

What would you do with the brain? It’s not doing much without a body. If you put it in your body in place of your brain then it wouldn’t really be you anymore. I think you would be better off reading the other article about using a hard drive to expand memory capacity.

ronch

That would be nice. Being a chip geek, apart from having a hard drive to expand my memory it could be interesting to have a chip implant as well to take care of arithmetic or other tasks which would otherwise be too slow to perform with our brains. How about a down-clocked Haswell core with support for MMX, SSE1 all the way to SSE4.2, AVX 1.0 and 2.0, AES (for when you need to encrypt or decrypt cryptic code! :D ), FMA3 (add and multiply at the same time!), and F16C (for conversions). And of course, there’s the NX bit support to prevent any viruses (which are prevalent inside one’s body!) from executing themselves inside your built-in Haswell chip augmentation. :D Oh, how about a Piledriver core instead? AMD offers better value. :)

Justin

Lol, you think AMD and Intel will miss the market on brain chips like they did with smart phones to Qualcom?

Zoltán Máté

i wouldnt recommend.

http://freshinfos.com/ Roshan Perera

So, I guess this makes her a Cyborg?
Did I just see her brain? :O

massau

I think a cyborg is a little bit different, this is more like a prosthesis knee.
things like fake, working robotic eyes (a chip sensor) pancreas replacement implants are more cyborg and.

Alduin

[IMG]http://i60.tinypic.com/2vj7rc6.jpg[/IMG]

spacemonkey

In an interview the surgeon mentioned he did consider making a small
hatch in the skull for easier access in future, but didn’t because of
the added complexity.

The possibilities are endless.

eonvee375

i wouldnt even cover it with useless skin ^^

Computer_Curmudgeon

But then everyone could see what you’re thinking. :-P

eonvee375

not a chance if youre dumb like me ^^

The_Purple_Finger

Wow Obama really sucks!

John Warren

They say a man can be best judged by his enemies. You are making Obama look really good.

Timothy

My god, 21st century is getting weird. Brain sugery is interesting, I like in fallout new Vegas how you search for you dogs new brain to give it attributes. Never did I think science could make a skull, I thought it had to attach some sort of veins to it. If they could only make it grow hair, god its scary.

eonvee375

hmmm now replace “scary” by “awesome” ^^

Justin

The skin is pulled back over the cranial implant, so whatever hair she grew before should still be there and grow normal… (I pressume)

Térence Vigan

Think “Deus Ex Human Revolution”. And you’ll see what is coming in a next fifty years…

Zoltán Máté

doom to us all for certain unless we stand up on our own feet not on the polices and gangsters feet .. we are but cattle.. chemical weapons were proved to exist as early as the first world war almost hundred years yet the protection is simple and known however architecture have not yet found such implementations people are walking on dusty shitty designed horrible cities of the middle age or before it. its all a piece of crap if u realy look at it from an engineers perspective.

dc

im praying for a 3D printed brain.

James

I’m not sure where people see this as relatively possible (anytime soon). We know so little of how the brain and its neural networks work together, let alone the ability to replicate them in some 3D printing application. That would be such an immense task to mimic all of the neural pathways of our ever-complex brains.

Of course if you just want a 3D printed brain that doesn’t function, I’m sure that wouldn’t be an issue as a simple mold filled with rubber could accommodate.

EpsylonRad

Impressive!

Nicole Alejandra

:| The world is mixing with the movies and books of science fiction

Justin

Why is that a bad thing? I like progress

Tom Macpherson-Pope

difficult to read this with the mistakes in it

Charles Patrick O’Brien

Perhaps this could help replace all the discs in my spine? all have lost their fluid,and the vertebrae crunch when I move too much or fast.

Zoltán Máté

noo my friend.. entire spines can be reconstrcuteed very easily with qite some hour surgery even better then what u have now.. only those disks would recquire maintenance always replacing the aging flexible material of joints….

The Gaf

Psimon

Reginald Peebottom

This is a truly huge leap for medicine and plastic surgery. Presumably, you could print out other bones and even the whole skull – helping to totally transform your face. You just know some geek is going to want “wolverine claws” 3D printed and attached to his arms. :)

There used to be a claim that if you could increase blood flow/reduce “brain pressure”, you could increase average intelligence. To that end, some people literally would drill holes in their skulls. This should finally be way to experiment with “if my skull were physically bigger, would I be smarter?”;)

Zoltán Máté

god in heavens the almighty. do u know how plastics are made?

Zoltán Máté

this all described is piece of cake.

Mark Drummond

Her hair stylist is going to have a heart attack at her next appointment.

Miguel Gonzalez

Reminds me of Hannibal :D

DeepSouthOtaku

awesome. so much potential medically and cosmetically.

IreneMBrewster

We know so little of how the brain and its neural networks work together, let alone the ability to replicate them in some 3D printing application. That would be such an immense task to mimic all of the neural pathways of our ever-complex brains. http://qr.net/rtcX

Dangerous Dave

So this article describes a 3D printer as simple. So anyone would be able to build one. How many people could even use one without reading the instructions?

Steve

DD – I did – I mean used it without reading the instructions… they’re everywhere and yes virtually anyone can build one – but it’s easier to buy one.

Zoltán Máté

3d printing is more costly.. then pouring the material in a shape, compressing then finishing… at least on the mass produce scale.. however what is sure is that prices are quite far from prohibitive (this way as i described there is higher quality then with 3d printing).
but 3d printing is not such an outstanding technological thing what so ever.. i dont get this being all around 3d printing attitude.

Forrest Higgs

She apparently has Paget’s disease, the same malady that eventually blinded the viking Egill Skallagrímsson of Egil’s Saga.

John Leonard

Can we add some RGB lighting with rainbow wave effects? Can it also sync with my RGB lighted keyboard? That would be sooo cool.

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